Free As A Pixie
by ProfessorSquirrell
Summary: Terry and Tracey make unlikely friends going in completely different directions. Terry wonders if he should let her go her own way.


_For the Quidditch League Finals Round 1. Prompts: tear, aquamarine, and first person present tense. Dialogue: "I can't wait until we're seventeen and free as a pixie."_

_Weird Tracey Davis/ Terry Boot friendship? I don't even know…._

* * *

There's a Galleon burning a hole in my pocket. The heat radiates against my thigh, begging for my attention and it makes me flinch in surprise. My first instinct is to pull it out and examine the time stamp Granger's charmed around the edge but I wait. I wait and I hope that the next meeting isn't tonight and that no one asks where I've been.

See, there's a Galleon burning a hole in my pocket and I'm lying on my back on the Quidditch pitch after curfew next to a beautiful Slytherin girl, and I remember the lack of green in the Room of Requirement and the promise I made to keep the D.A. a secret and it makes me wonder. I turn to look at Tracey and I wonder if I'm wrong. Because all I can think of is the way she seemed to be drowning in aquamarine and sequins at the Yule Ball and how after she got drunk off the firewhisky she admitted she was Muggleborn and the look on her face when she called Pansy Parkinson a "horrid bitch." I remember that she still managed to answer the riddle to get into the Ravenclaw common room before I could wrap my head around the question. It was impressive, really.

She slept on one of the couches by the fireplace that night, but no one seemed to notice or care. She had a few tears rolling down her face when I said goodnight to her and she was gone before I woke up the next day.

Some nights we break curfew. She drags me to the Quidditch pitch at the time of night when clouds of mist gather around the goal posts, and the moon shining through the clouds is more eerie than romantic and that's fine, I suppose. Romantic isn't exactly what we are. I haven't got up the nerve to ask if it's something she wants to be.

Sometimes she makes a fire under the bleachers and we warm our hands around it. Sometimes she has a flask of firewhisky to share instead.

Tonight is one of those nights. The alcohol warms my bones until I almost forget about the cold and I don't want it to end. I don't want to go to Umbridge's class tomorrow. I don't want to go back to a world where Tracey and I don't talk about things that really matter.

"What's wrong, Terry?" she asks. She twists her fingers through the frosty grass. "You're quiet tonight."

I shrug off her comment and put my hands behind my head. "Just thinking."

"What about?"

"Nothing much, really."

"Liar."

I sigh, shifting uncomfortably. "I had my meeting with Flitwick about career advice today. Hadn't given it much thought before. I don't know why. That's something most people already have an idea about right?"

Tracey shrugs. "Oh, I don't know. I have mine with Snape tomorrow I think. But I don't know what I'm even going to say. I'm a bit sick of everything to do with magic, to be honest."

"Really?"

"I can't wait until we're seventeen and free as a pixie," she says. She sits up and lifts the flask to her lips, contemplating something. She hands the flask to me. "I've been thinking about it, and I might just go back to the Muggle world. Try and forget about this place. Maybe I'll get some sort of mundane job where I don't need a wand and a person delivers my mail instead of an owl. Does that sound completely mad?"

I shake my head. "If you'd told me that a year ago I'd probably have said so. I don't know anymore."

"I mean, don't get me wrong, magic is useful. But "the Muggle way" isn't such a horrible way to live." Perhaps I'm imagining it, but her lips seem to be trembling from something other than the cold.

I nod in agreement though I have no idea what "the Muggle way" to do anything is. I've never taken Muggle Studies. I've never really thought about it much, but I suppose I'd feel the same if I were Muggleborn. Everyone likes what's familiar.

In any case, I hope one day she does get to escape, to go back to a life that is so seemingly mundane. A life that is simple and complicated at the same time and where she doesn't have the threat of what's to come hanging above her head. And perhaps it's a naive thing to hope for, but I hope she can be free. Free as a pixie, whatever that means. I suppose I should wish that for myself too, but Granger's coin is burning a hole in my pocket and I really ought to go.

I move to get up.

"Where are you off to?"

She pouts. Her lower lip is blue and she has a leaf stuck in her hair. I reach over to brush it away.

"There's just something I have to do."

"Was it something I said?"

"No." I hold out my hand to help her up, and throw my arm around her shoulders as we make our way back up to the castle, keeping to the shadows by the greenhouses so we don't get caught. "I promise it's not anything you said. It's just I have to take care of something and it's cold."

"What do you have to take care of?"

Maybe I should tell her. She's dragged me into a corner of the courtyard, her arms folded, eyes flashing in annoyance. She's defiant and smart and bloody perfect, and I wish I could tell her everything and offer her a place where she feels like she has none. But the D. A. is not the sort of thing she wants to be a part of. She just said so herself. She wants to leave this place behind, and maybe that's for the best. Maybe it's best to let her be.

"Good luck with Snape tomorrow," I say, and I walk away, sneaking through an unlocked window I found once in a deserted first floor corridor. I take out the coin from my pocket and inspect the message.

I'm late.

* * *

The last time I feel that Galleon burning a hole in my pocket, I'm standing in a crowd of students in the Room of Requirement and Harry Potter is here and Tracey isn't and wonder where she is. I wonder if she's okay, if she's free as a pixie or if the Snatchers caught up to her eventually.

Or maybe she ran away and changed her name and a postman delivers all of her mail. I hope so. I hope she's happy wherever she is.

But mostly, I hope I did the right thing.


End file.
